shire

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shire, also schire,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English sċīr (“official charge, administrative office; district”),^[5][2][6][7] inherited from Proto-West Germanic *skīru (“district; office”).^[1][2] Its only known Germanic relative is Old High German scīra (“care, official charge”), found in just two glosses,^[5][3][2] and the Germanic form may have been Proto-Germanic *skīrō or Proto-Germanic *skīzō.^[5] Barnhart and the OED mention a suggested link, through a reconstructed form older than Germanic, Proto-Indo-European *skeisā-, with Latin cūra (“care”), the source of cure;^[5][3][8] Hoad calls the origin uncertain.^[7] Weekley rejects any connection with shear,^[9] which Johnson had implied by deriving the word from a verb meaning "to divide".^[10] Sheriff is a compound based on it.^[8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the word first meant an official charge or administrative office, such as that of a steward, bishop or governor, before 800 in the Corpus Glossary;^[5][3] this sense did not outlive the Old English period.^[8][5]

Semantic evolution

By the 9th century the word was used for an area ruled by a governor,^[8] and also for a bishop's see or simply a region or country, a use that lasted until 1824.^[5] Over the next hundred years it came to name what is now called a county: in late Anglo-Saxon England, a district made up of smaller hundreds or wapentakes under an ealdorman and a sheriff.^[8][5][4] County, from Anglo-French, arrived in the 14th century and gradually replaced it.^[8][2] The word survives as the last element of county names such as Yorkshire and Berkshire, from 1064 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[5] The Shires was used, from before 1796, by people in East Anglia, Kent, Sussex, Essex and Surrey for the other counties, especially those whose names end in -shire,^[5][2][9] and by about 1860 for the fox-hunting country of the Midlands.^[2][5] The shire horse, short shire from 1877, is said to be named after the breed's origin in the Shires.^[5][12][13] Since 1909 a shire has also been a rural district with its own council in Australia.^[5][12] In East Anglian dialect a shireman was, with some contempt, anyone born outside East Anglia or Essex.^[14]

Timeline

• before 800 – an official charge or office (Old English only).^[5][3]
• 800s – an area ruled by a governor.^[8]
• 1010 – the inhabitants of a shire, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[5]
• 1064 – as the last element of county names.^[5]
• before 1200 – Middle English schire.^[3]
• before 1796 – the Shires, the counties beyond East Anglia and the South-East.^[5][2]
• 1810 – verb, to divide into shires.^[5]
• 1860 – the Shires, the hunting country of the Midlands.^[5][2]
• 1877 – short for Shire horse.^[5]
• 1909 – a rural administrative district in Australia.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A county of Great Britain, especially of England; also the last part of county names, as in Lancashire: She grew up in the shires.^[12][4][5]
2. In Anglo-Saxon England, an administrative district made up of smaller districts, ruled by an alderman and a sheriff.^[4][5]
3. In Australia, a rural district with its own local council.^[12][4][5]
4. the Shires: the counties of the English Midlands, especially Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, known for fox hunting.^[12][5]
5. A shire horse.^[12][5]
6. An administrative subdivision of colonial America.^[4]

Verb

1. To divide a region into shires.^[4][5]

Word family

• Bedfordshire
• Monmouthshire
• Yorkshire
• shire horse
• shire town

Related words

• sheriff

Usage notes

An adjective shire, bright, clear or pure, from Old English scīr (“bright, clear”) and related to shine and sheer, is unrelated to the noun; it was used until the 18th century,^[5][15] and lingered in Scots and northern dialect for clear or thin liquids, thin cloth and scanty crops.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press